Heretofore, many functional materials have been developed. Among them, in functional commercial products, development in which a fiber material, a cloth structure, functional post-treatment and the like are combined has also be progressed positively in order to allow the products to develop higher and newer functions.
In new functional fibers in recent years, complexing and upgrading thereof have advanced. Moreover, in the apparel industry, many proposals have been made on fibers in which functions are changed in response to a change of a wearing environment, that is, which include so-called dynamic functionality. A thermal storage material that aims an enhancement of heat retention properties, which corresponds to an absorption amount of light energy, is an example of the dynamically functional fibers as described above.
As one of the functions thus specialized, an adjustment function for climate within clothing has been desired. In other word, so-called breathing clothing has been desired. In Japanese Patent Unexamined Publication No. 2005-23431, reversible-airflow cloth has been proposed, which controls a temperature and a humidity within the clothing in such a manner that air permeability of the clothing is reversibly changed in response to dynamic changes of the temperature, the humidity, moisture and the like within the clothing. This cloth has characteristics that the air permeability is reversibly changed by using materials in which a percentage of crimp is changed in response to the humidity and the moisture.
Each of these clothing materials is designed so that the air permeability can be optimized based on a difference between an external environment such as outdoor air temperature and humidity and an internal environment such as a body temperature and the humidity within the clothing. However, when the material is applied to other purposes, the change that is linked with the temperature and the humidity is not necessarily required in some case.
For example, in a non-woven fabric for use in a sound absorbing material and a sound insulating material, performance thereof regarding the sound absorption and insulation can be changed based on the air permeability. However, it is necessary for the non-woven fabric to have an adjustment function based on a controllable factor in order to obtain necessary sound absorbing performance in response to a noisy environment.
As a mechanical drive source capable of controlling the factor, a motor, hydraulic/pneumatic actuators and the like can be mentioned. However, in general, many of these mechanical drive sources are made of metal and largely occupy a mass and a space. Moreover, also in necessary power sources, there are many which require excessive energy.
Moreover, it is desirable that the material be made of a polymer in consideration that the material is used for the cloth, the non-woven fabric, the apparel and the like. In this viewpoint, there is known an electric deformation method using a pyrrole polymer that responds to stimulation (refer to Japanese Patent Unexamined Publication No. H11-159443).
Furthermore, as an example of an actuator using an organic material, which is obtained for the purpose of weight reduction and space saving, an electrical-conductive polymer described in Japanese Patent Unexamined Publication No. 2004-162035 is one to apply expansion and contraction of the organic material to the above-described subject by using an electrochemical oxidation-reduction reaction. However, a specific example of a shape thus obtained is a film shape, and only one example is shown, where an expansion-contraction direction thereof is a longitudinal direction.
Besides the above, as an example of an actuator formed by combination of a gel and a solvent, there is one described in Japanese Patent Unexamined Publication No. 2004-188523. However, in this example, a gel actuator that drives primarily in the solvent is made to drive in the air, and accordingly, it is necessary to hold, as a system, the actuator together with a solvent bath, and there is a possibility that a performance decrease owing to leakage of an electrolytic solution and to electrolysis may occur.